Karma in lotteries

Renée Green sat on the couch last Wednesday night when a story came on the news about the grave situation in Haiti. As I watched the images of the struggle of Haitians swept through her flat screen, green condo looked around in the suburbs of Seattle, in everything we take for granted. The brick fireplace in the corner. The washing machine. The kitchen faucet that pours clean water at the turn of a knob. The gap was too high. So Renee Green decided to do something many of us will have the opportunity in the coming weeks: check donated his entire $ 700 tax rebate relief efforts in Haiti.

“It is true that $ 700 is not much,” said TakePart. “But it was a lot to me. It is worth someone’s life easier with a bar of soap or a roll of toilet paper.”

History of Green could stop there and would still be worth telling. The need in Haiti can not be overstated, the government is ready to announce later this month requires U.S. $ 11.5 billion for reconstruction. That’s a huge amount, almost incomprehensible, and to reach people around the world will follow the example of green and the sacrifice of cash they can. Anyone who does will get the intangible benefit by helping others.

As for Green, well, his reward is a bit more concrete.

On Monday, four days after she donated her check, Green made his daily stop at the 7-Eleven on the way to work. She bought her usual breakfast: a milk, a bagel, and a couple of scratch lottery tickets.

But Monday morning was anything but routine. When he sat at his desk, drinking his milk and waiting for your computer to boot, green striped away and realized he had a winner. It seemed like $ 5 at first. $ 50. The zeroes kept coming, and by the time he had finished Renée Green had scratched his way to $ 50,000.

She already has two children a piece. And she has been researching how to buy one of these super comfortable beds you’ve been dreaming since I spent the night in a Westin hotel. Green will donate a portion, too, but she will focus their efforts locally on this occasion and donate books of mathematics at a local school.

Green will tell you that she has always believed in karma. But just as quickly going to say she did not buy that lottery ticket waiting for revenge. She does not expect anything to come their way to help a neighborhood school, either. “What I did to Haiti was in my heart,” he says. “And I’ll keep doing things my heart.”